Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 40.djvu/138

 Hollister (d. 13 July 1676) and Henry Row, both leading quakers. The magistrates at once arrested Nayler and seven of his following. Among them was ‘Rob. Crab,’ not improbably Roger Crab [q. v.] the hermit; he was discharged with another on 31 Oct. The rest were forwarded to London on 10 Nov., to be examined by the House of Commons on the report of Robert Aldworth, town clerk of Bristol, and one of the members for that city. They were not sent to prison, but kept under guard at an inn, where they received numerous visitors, and the homage of kneeling was repeated by Sarah Blackbury and others.

On 15 Nov. they were brought before a committee (appointed 31 Oct.) of fifty-five members of the commons in the painted chamber, Thomas Bampfield [q. v.], recorder of Exeter, being the chairman. After four sittings the committee reported to the house on 5 Dec. The report mentioned the Roper business in a review of Nayler's life. He challenged a full inquiry into his past character; no witnesses were examined on oath. Nayler was brought up at the bar of the house on 6 Dec., and adjudged, on 8 Dec., guilty of ‘horrid blasphemy.’ The blasphemy was constructive; Chalmers observes that it does not appear that he uttered any words at all in the incriminated transaction. Under examination he maintained that the honours had been paid not to himself, but to ‘Christ within’ him. Petitions urging severity against quakers were presented from several English counties. For seven days the house debated whether the sentence should be made capital; it was carried in the negative by ninety-six votes to eighty-two on 16 Dec., when the following ingenious substitute was devised by the legislature. On 18 Dec. Nayler was to be pilloried for two hours in New Palace Yard, and then whipped by the hangman to the Exchange. On 20 Dec. he was to be pilloried for two hours at the Exchange, his tongue pierced with a hot iron, and the letter B (for blasphemer) branded on his forehead. Afterwards he was to be taken to Bristol by the sheriffs of London, ridden through the city with his face to the horsetail, and then whipped through the city. Lastly, he was to be conveyed back to London, and kept in Bridewell during the pleasure of parliament, at hard and solitary labour, without use of pen and ink, his food to be dependent on the chances of his earnings by labour. Nayler was brought up to receive this sentence on 17 Dec. He said he did not know his offence. The speaker, Thomas Widdrington, told him he should know his offence by his punishment.

Nayler was pilloried and whipped on 18 Dec. He was left in such a mangled state that on the morning of 20 Dec. a petition for reprieve was presented to parliament by outsiders, and a respite granted till 27 Dec. On 23 Dec. a petition, headed by Colonel Scrope, sometime governor of Bristol, for remission of the remaining sentence, was presented to parliament by Joshua Sprigg, formerly an independent minister. Parliament sent five divines (Caryl, Manton, Nye, Griffith, and Reynolds) to confer with Nayler, who defended the action of his followers by scripture. The petition was followed up by an address to Cromwell, who on 25 Dec. wrote to the speaker, asking for the reasons of the house's procedure. A debate (26, 27, 30 Dec.) on this letter was adjourned to 2 Jan. and then dropped. It was a moot point whether the existing parliament had power to act as a judicatory. Meanwhile Nayler was subjected to the second part of his punishment on 27 Dec., when Robert Rich (d. 17 Nov. 1679), a quaker merchant (who had appealed to parliament on 15 Dec.) stood beside him on the pillory, and placed a placard over his head, with the words, ‘This is the king of the Jews.’ An officer tore it down. Nayler ‘put out his tongue very willingly,’ says Burton, ‘but shrinked a little when the iron came upon his forehead. He was pale when he came out of the pillory, but high-coloured after tongue-boring.’ ‘Rich … cried, stroked his hair and face, kissed Nayler's hand, and strove to suck the fire out of his forehead.’ The Bristol part of the sentence was carried out on 17 Jan. 1657, amid a crowd of Nayler's sympathisers, Rich riding in front bareheaded, singing ‘Holy, holy,’ &c. Nayler was again immured (23 Jan.) in Bridewell, to which his associates had been sent. On 29 Jan. the governors of Bridewell were allowed to give his wife access to him; and on 26 May, owing to the state of his health, a ‘keeper’ was assigned to him. After a time pen and ink were allowed him, and he wrote a contrite letter to the London Friends. He fell ill in 1658. Cromwell in August sent William Malyn to report upon him, but Cromwell's death occurred shortly after (3 Sept.) Not till 8 Sept. 1659 was Nayler released from prison on the speaker's warrant.

He came out sobered and penitent. His first act was to publish a short tract, ‘Glory to God Almighty’ [1659], 4to, and then he repaired to George Fox, who was at Reading and ill. He was not allowed to see him, but subsequently Fox sanctioned his return to mission work. He went on to Bristol, and there made public confession of his offence. Early in 1660 (so Whitehead's date, 1657, a misprint for 1659, may be read, in modern